For Teaching

Hebrews 10: What the Passage Says

98 claims across 39 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Hebrews 10 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

The writer argues that the yearly sacrifices of the law could never take sins away, since they had to be repeated over and over, while Christ's single offering of his body does what they could not. He quotes scripture about a body prepared for the one who came to do God's will, and about a covenant in which God remembers sins no more, concluding that where sins are forgiven, no further offering for sin is needed. On that basis he urges the readers to come near to God, hold on to what they profess, keep meeting together, and encourage each other, and he warns that for those who sin deliberately after knowing the truth there is no sacrifice left, only judgment. He closes by recalling the suffering they endured in earlier days and calling them to hold out until they receive what God promised.

Claim by Claim

10:1
- The law has a shadow of the good things to come.
- The law does not have the very image of those things.
- The same sacrifices were offered year by year continually.
- The law can never make perfect, by those sacrifices, those who come near to worship.
10:2
- If the law could make them perfect, the sacrifices would have ceased to be offered.
- Worshippers once purged would have had no more consciousness of sins.
10:3
- In those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins made every year.
10:4
- It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
10:5
- When he comes into the world, he says the following.
- He says that God did not desire sacrifice and offering.
- He says that God prepared a body for him.
10:6
- He says that God took no pleasure in burnt offerings and offerings for sin.
10:7
- He says that he then said, Behold, I come.
- He says it is written of him in the volume of the book.
- He says he comes to do God's will.
- He addresses God directly.
10:8
- Above he said that God did not desire sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and offerings for sin.
- Above he said that God had no pleasure in them.
- Those offerings are offered according to the law.
10:9
- Then he said, Behold, I come to do thy will, O God.
- He takes away the first.
- He takes away the first in order to establish the second.
10:10
- By that will we are sanctified.
- We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ.
- That offering was made once for all.
10:11
- Every priest stands daily ministering.
- Every priest offers the same sacrifices often.
- Those sacrifices can never take away sins.
10:12
- This man offered one sacrifice for sins.
- He sat down at the right hand of God.
- It is ambiguous whether the phrase for ever describes the one sacrifice offered or his sitting down at God's right hand.
10:13
- From that time onward he waits.
- He waits until his enemies are made his footstool.
10:14
- By one offering he has perfected for ever those who are sanctified.
10:15
- The Holy Ghost is also a witness to us of this.
- The Holy Ghost had said something beforehand.
10:16
- This is the covenant that God will make with them after those days.
- The Lord says this.
- God will put his laws into their hearts.
- God will write his laws in their minds.
10:17
- God will remember their sins and iniquities no more.
10:18
- Where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.
10:19
- The addressees are called brethren.
- We have boldness to enter into the holiest place.
- That entry is by the blood of Jesus.
10:20
- The way is new and living.
- He consecrated that way for us.
- The way is through the veil.
- The veil is his flesh.
10:21
- We have a great priest over the house of God.
10:22
- Let us draw near with a true heart.
- Let us draw near in full assurance of faith.
- Our hearts have been sprinkled from an evil conscience.
- Our bodies have been washed with pure water.
10:23
- Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.
- He who promised is faithful.
10:24
- Let us consider one another.
- The purpose is to stir one another up to love and to good works.
10:25
- Let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together.
- Some have the habit of forsaking it.
- Let us exhort one another.
- Let us do so all the more as you see the day approaching.
10:26
- If we sin wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins remains any longer.
10:27
- What remains is a fearful expectation of judgment.
- What remains is a fiery indignation.
- That fire will devour the adversaries.
10:28
- Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy.
- That death came on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
10:29
- The readers are asked how much worse a punishment such a person will be counted worthy of.
- The person in question has trodden the Son of God under foot.
- The person has counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing.
- That person was sanctified by that blood.
- The person has insulted the Spirit of grace.
10:30
- We know him who said these words.
- He said, Vengeance belongs to me.
- He said, I will repay.
- The Lord says this.
- He also said, The Lord shall judge his people.
10:31
- It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
10:32
- Call to remembrance the former days.
- In those days you had been illuminated.
- In those days you endured a great struggle of sufferings.
10:33
- In part you were made a public spectacle by reproaches and afflictions.
- In part you became companions of those who were treated that way.
10:34
- You had compassion on me in my bonds.
- You accepted the plundering of your goods with joy.
- You knew within yourselves that you have a better and enduring possession in heaven.
10:35
- Do not cast away your confidence.
- That confidence has a great reward.
10:36
- You have need of endurance.
- The purpose is that after you have done the will of God you may receive the promise.
10:37
- It is yet a very little while.
- He who is coming will come.
- He will not delay.
10:38
- The just shall live by faith.
- If anyone draws back, God's soul has no pleasure in him.
10:39
- We are not of those who draw back to destruction.
- We are of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

10:1: "Shadow" and "the very image" are a matched pair: an outline cast on a wall against the solid thing that casts it. The second phrase does not mean a picture or copy; it means the actual form of the thing itself. "Make perfect" translates a word meaning to bring to completion or to fully qualify a person for a role, as a priest was qualified for service. It is not a claim about moral flawlessness. "Year by year" points to the one annual ceremony described in verse 3.
10:2: "Conscience" here means awareness, the ongoing sense of carrying guilt, rather than the inner voice that tells right from wrong. "Purged" means cleansed.
10:3: The reference is to the Day of Atonement, the single day each year when Israel's high priest entered the innermost room of the sanctuary with blood to cleanse the people and the sanctuary itself (Leviticus 16). The writer's point is about the calendar: a rite repeated every year names the same sins every year.
10:4: Bulls and goats were the specific animals of that annual rite, a bull for the high priest and his household and a goat for the people.
10:5: Verses 5 to 7 quote Psalm 40:6 to 8 in its Greek translation, the Septuagint, which was the form of scripture most first century readers knew. The Hebrew text of the psalm reads "ears you have dug for me"; the Greek reads "a body you prepared for me." The argument that follows depends on the Greek wording.
10:6: A burnt offering was an animal burned whole on the altar, with no part eaten. An offering for sin dealt with a particular offense, and most of it was not burned. Naming four kinds of offering is a way of covering the whole sacrificial system, not listing exceptions.
10:7: "The volume of the book" is a scroll, a long sheet rolled on a rod; "volume" translates a word for the roll itself, since books with pages did not yet exist. Which scroll is meant is left open: the psalm itself, or the Law as a whole.
10:9: "The first" and "the second" are the two halves of the quotation just given: the sacrifices God says he did not want, and the doing of God's will that replaces them.
10:10: "Sanctified" means set apart for God's use, made holy; in this letter it describes a change of standing, not a gradual moral improvement. "Once for all" translates a single Greek word meaning once and never again, done in a way that cannot be repeated. It does not mean "once for everybody."
10:11: The detail that the priest stands is deliberate. There was no seat in the sanctuary for a priest on duty, because his work was never finished. Compare the seated figure in the next verse.
10:12: "After he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever" is ambiguous in the Greek: "for ever" can attach to the offering, giving a sacrifice valid for all time, or to what follows, giving a permanent sitting down. Both readings are old. "The right hand" is the place of highest honor, the seat next to a king, from which his authority is exercised.
10:13: The image comes from Psalm 110:1. A victorious ancient king would put his foot on a defeated enemy, and thrones had literal footstools; the picture combines the two.
10:14: The two verbs pull in different directions on purpose. "Hath perfected" is completed action; "them that are sanctified" is an ongoing process, people in the course of being set apart.
10:15: What follows is a quotation of Jeremiah 31:33 to 34, which the writer presents as the Holy Spirit's own testimony rather than simply as the prophet's words.
10:16: A covenant is a binding agreement that establishes a relationship on stated terms, closer to a treaty between a king and a people than to a private contract. Israel's older covenant had its terms written on stone tablets, which is the contrast behind writing on hearts and minds.
10:17: "Iniquities" means lawless acts, deeds that break the covenant. "Remember no more" is a legal turn of phrase meaning not to hold something against a person any longer; it is not a statement about the limits of memory.
10:18: "Remission" in 1611 English meant release or cancellation, the word used for calling off a debt or a penalty.
10:19: "Boldness" translates a word that first meant a citizen's right to speak freely in the public assembly, and then came to mean unrestricted access to someone important. "The holiest" is the Most Holy Place, the inner room of the sanctuary behind a heavy curtain, which only the high priest entered and only on the one day a year mentioned in verse 3.
10:20: "Consecrated" here means opened up or inaugurated, the word used for the first use of a new road or building. The Greek of "through the veil, that is to say, his flesh" is compressed and has been read two ways since antiquity: his body is the curtain that is passed through, or his body is the means by which the curtain is passed.
10:21: "An high priest" here translates a phrase meaning "a great priest," the standard title for the chief priest in the Greek Old Testament. "The house of God" carries both senses at once: the sanctuary building and the household of people who belong to it.
10:22: Both images are priestly. Blood was sprinkled on the people when the covenant was made (Exodus 24) and on priests when they were ordained; priests also washed in water before entering to serve. Some readers have heard baptism in the second phrase, but the wording is the wording of the sanctuary.
10:23: The Greek reads "the confession of the hope"; the King James "profession of our faith" follows a minority reading. "Profession" and "confession" both mean a statement said out loud in public, not a private conviction.
10:24: "Provoke" in 1611 meant to spur or stir into action, with no hostile sense at all; the modern meaning of needling someone is a later shift. "Consider" means to look closely at, to pay real attention to.
10:25: "The day" is the expected day of the Lord, the day of judgment and rescue spoken of by the prophets. The writer names it with no explanation because his readers knew the phrase.
10:26: The older law distinguished between sins committed in ignorance, for which sacrifice was provided, and defiant or "high handed" sin, for which it was not (Numbers 15:30 to 31). "Wilfully" carries that sense: deliberate, with full knowledge, and in the Greek an action kept up rather than a single lapse.
10:27: "Fiery indignation" translates a phrase meaning something like "a burning zeal," echoing Isaiah 26:11. "Adversaries" simply means opponents, those on the other side.
10:28: "Despised" here means set aside or rejected outright, not merely looked down on. The rule about two or three witnesses comes from Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15: no one could be put to death on the word of a single accuser.
10:29: "Counted an unholy thing" means treated as common or ordinary, the exact opposite of set apart; the word is the everyday term for what anyone may handle. "Done despite unto" is an old phrase for insulting someone with open arrogance. "Wherewith he was sanctified" is ambiguous in the Greek: the one made holy may be the offender, or the Son himself.
10:30: Both quotations are from the Song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32:35 and 36. "Vengeance" in this sense is judicial punishment imposed by rightful authority, not private revenge; "recompense" means to pay back what is owed.
10:31: "The living God" is a set phrase that contrasts God with carved idols, which cannot see, speak or act.
10:32: "Illuminated" means enlightened; it was an early term for coming to know the faith, and the light image is why the rendering speaks of light. "A great fight of afflictions" uses a word from athletics, a contest in the arena watched by a crowd.
10:33: "Gazingstock" translates a verb built on the word for theater: to be put on stage for a crowd to stare at. The disgrace is public exposure, not just rough treatment.
10:34: Manuscripts differ here between "my bonds" and "the prisoners." Prisoners in the ancient world depended on friends outside for food and clothing, and helping them publicly identified you with them. "Spoiling of your goods" means property seized, whether by official confiscation or by a mob. "Substance" means a possession or piece of property.
10:35: "Confidence" translates the same Greek word rendered "boldness" in verse 19, the freedom to speak and approach. "Recompence of reward" means a payment that is due, like wages.
10:36: "Patience" here is not calm waiting. The Greek word means holding out under pressure, staying in position when the weight is on you.
10:37: The opening phrase echoes Isaiah 26:20 and the rest quotes Habakkuk 2:3 to 4 in Greek. The Greek wording turns Habakkuk's "it will surely come" into a person, "the coming one," which is why the line reads as being about someone rather than something.
10:38: "The just" means the person who is in the right, righteous. The line has long been read two ways: the righteous person will live by his faith or faithfulness, or the person who is righteous by faith will live. The Greek supports both. "My soul shall have no pleasure" is a Hebrew way of saying simply "I take no pleasure," with "soul" standing for the speaker himself.
10:39: "Perdition" means ruin or destruction, the loss of the thing itself. "Soul" here means life or the whole self, as in the previous verse, not an immaterial part of a person.

Read Hebrews 10